


but now you're a stranger and i'm still july

by LazyBaker



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Christmas, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reunions, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29214717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyBaker/pseuds/LazyBaker
Summary: Two weeks freshly sprung with decades left on the meter, an apartment the U.S. government pays for sitting pretty a mile from a 24-hour Gas-N-Sip, and Christmas hitting at daybreak—Billy’s flying high.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 10
Kudos: 109
Collections: Harringrove Holiday Exchange 2020





	but now you're a stranger and i'm still july

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baconbits1760](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baconbits1760/gifts).



> deleted it. re-uploading it.

Two weeks freshly sprung with decades left on the meter, an apartment the U.S. government pays for sitting pretty a mile from a 24-hour Gas-N-Sip, and Christmas hitting at daybreak—Billy’s flying high.

He waits until after midnight to make a break for it. He’s run out of the beer he ain’t supposed to be dipping his toes into and the letters Max slipped under his door are approaching _getting read_ faster than _getting burned on the gas stove’s range_. Sobriety on his tail turns him sentimental.

She’d been to _his_ apartment once when he’d first gotten the peachy new glimpse of what his life’s gonna look like in the _real world_. A shitter all for himself. A suede couch. A TV with a VHS player and cable. A queen size bed and sheets that smell like detergent. A stereo better than the one he’d had at Cherry Lane. All his shit piled up in corner looking measly and collecting dust.

A little place he could call his own despite the bugs he’s sure are planted in the walls and the neighbors he hasn’t heard a peep out of once. They’re worried he’ll start talking to himself. Percolate on a plan for world domination _again_.

Max had been sweet. Put on the little sister routine real well, more convincing than any of the years they spent being Hargroves together before. Asked him how he was. What it was like. She missed him, she’d said. So did Susan. So did _Neil_. So did El. So did—he stopped listening. Made him want to crawl out of his own skin. Family’s a funky idea he stopped trying to wrap his head around back in California. He didn’t read the letters she wrote to him while he was laid up and tripping in his own slice of paradise hooked on morphine. He’d fucked up only once, skimmed and wanted to take a walk down the street on his wrists.

Billy’d faked a migraine to get her to leave then locked the door and kept it locked. Duct taped the curtains to the walls to block out the sun and the world and the little hellscape that is Hawkins, Indiana. Let her letters pile up at the mat and ignored how there was more than one set of handwriting when he’d slipped and given himself one second of weakness for a quick glance that leads to embracing porcelain.

He blows his cash on three six-packs, every brand of chocolate bar in the place, and a couple packs of Reds. Stands on the black mat outside the Gas-N-Sip entrance and fusses with a lighter. Can’t smoke for shit anymore, but does it anyways. It’s what he’s used to. Likes the feel of a smoke between his lips. Gives him something to do now that he’s been sheered and branded and left to roll in shit on his own, a _good luck_ and weekly appointments following him out the door with a boot-print on his ass to give him a jumpstart.

His hands shake. It could be the cold. He’s only in a denim jacket over a thin white tank top, an old pair of jeans that hang loose on his hips, and a pair of sneakers already wet, squishing under his heels.

Billy gets caught up in his shadow. The burn of the smoke in his lungs. Makes him cough. Hack. He spits on the ground and it melts the snow. Scratches at the bristly hair on his chin, his icy fingers prickling to life, his joints groaning in the cold. He can hear the faint sound of Brenda Lee playing from inside the gas station and scowls.

Someone grabs him by his arm. Turns him around.

Billy drops his bag. His beautiful, love of his life cigarette hits the ground and sizzles out in the sludge.

Pulse pounding, he rams the bony heel of his palm into Steve Harrington’s nose. A half-cocked punch made in the spur of the moment. Knocks Steve’s wool hat off his head. The crack has Billy wincing. His side twisting in pain. Has Steve spurting blood. Drenches the front of his nice, probably-definitely expensive winter coat. Splatters hot on Billy’s bare-bones shirt.

The bright light spilling from the gas station windows makes the red turn _RED_ and when Billy licks his chapped bottom lip and tastes copper, checks his own chest and back to Steve—Billy’s breath turns labored. Heaves out of him then shallows.

Steve should have dodged it.

The punch came with neon lights. Hit wide. Knocked on a couple barn doors on the turn. Swept the Indiana border and smacked into Illinois. Would’ve left less of a gusher had Steve done what any sane human being would do faced with Billy Hargrove this late at night on Christmas Eve.

Ducked. Backed off. Avoided him. Gotten his ass to safety across town. Tore up Billy’s name from his rolodex and hightailed it 100 miles in the opposite direction.

“Fuck fuck _fuck_ —what the fuck?” Steve’s _talking_. Billy’s not what he used to be.

Can hardly lift his arms passed his shoulders. Throwing a punch ain’t gonna shake the ground with thunder like it used to.

Steve’s bent over, holding his hands to his face.

“You were supposed to dodge it.” Billy says, miffed. Eyeing his plastic bag on the ground. His dented beer. His soggy smokes. Steve’s hat. “Shit.” Billy says. Scratches at the back of his head. “Goddamn shit.”

“What the hell? What the hell? _Oh my god._ ”

“It’s—fuck you, it’s your own fault.”

Steve rears up. Steam rises off his blood covered face. He’s glaring and swearing and _hating_ Billy. Steve’s dripping gallons in that RED.

Just pisses Billy off.

He can’t fucking _breathe_.

“How—how would I even know to dodge?” Steve says.

“What kinda asshole just grabs a guy outta nowhere?”

“I said your name, dipshit. Like twenty times. Fuck. _Fuck you._ God _damn_.” Steve’s voice is hollowed out by his cupped hands over his nose and mouth. He sounds like he’s talking out his nostrils.

It was a wimpy, weak-ass punch. Might as well have had his thumb tucked in.

Billy clenches his hand useless by his side, a dull throb echoing up his arm to his elbow to tell him tomorrow he’ll be sore and in an even worse mood than the one Saint Nick and his own life decisions have left him in.

He hadn’t heard Steve.   
  
Billy shoves his hands into his pockets and rips them back out to gesture in the air, at Steve, at theblood on the ground that _is_ that bad.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“My brains are coming outta my head.”

“You were supposed to _dodge it_.” Billy says it again, scrambling to mean it more, head chucking out his brain and all the nice thoughts that come with it.

“I didn’t know we were gonna throw down.” Steve shoots back. “Jesus H., man.”

Steve crouches, head dropping between his shoulders, groans low, bottom of the ground beneath the earth’s surface and close to the core guttural, comes back up for air and tilts his head to the stars. Billy can hear the sticky, stuffed up slurp of his heavy breathing. His hair’s longer.

Billy hasn’t seen Steve since summer. He’d wanted to keep this months-long streak going. Kick it up to years-long. Maybe give him a once-over at the Hawkins High twenty year reunion from the back of the gym when Billy’s feeling generous with himself and whatever _future_ Doc believes he has ahead of him.

Billy’s not prepared to see Steve tonight or to see the glittering gold lights on the trim of the Gas- N-Sip reflect in his hurt brown eyes or the soft glow on his long, pale neck shimmering with slick hurt Billy caused.

By now, Billy should know luck isn’t his friend. He hasn’t even had one of those since Wayne and he screwed that sky-high after only being able to hit on him drunk.

Billy bends down, picks up Steve’s hat. Still warm from his head. A few stray hairs stuck inside. It has a blue puff-ball on top. For as much as Billy doesn’t want to see Steve or have Steve see him, he’s run over with how dorky this wool cap is and how he _really does_ wish he’d seen it on Steve before instincts and self-preservation took the wheel and bowled them both over.

Billy struggles with what to do. The snow crunches under his shifting feet. It’s a good mile walk back and the only one who can get him into that fun, hazy drunk state he can sit through an episode of Andy Griffith and enjoy it is _Billy_.

Steve's got blood on his hands. Trickling thick through his fingers. Onto his boots. Melting the snow in his shadow.

Steve’s meant to be the exception. Rotten luck all around.

He shoves Steve’s hat into his back pocket. Tugs Steve’s hands away from his face so he can get a better look at the slicked up mess he’d caused, heart kicking happy when Steve lets him without much of a struggle, just a confused wrinkle to his eyebrows.

“You gonna hit me again just for saying _hi?_ ”

“Only pervs grab unsuspecting folk in the middle of the night, Harrington. Might wanna keep that in mind next time you go grabbin' ass.” Billy snaps. Snot’s dribbling out of Steve’s nose on top of everything else. His mouth’s hanging open, his cloudy breath hitting Billy in the face. The smell of it making his stomach churn. The heat making his head dizzy. _Warm warm warm_.

“I don’t see any brain. Any more than there usually is.”

Steve's laugh is _damp_. Soaked to the bone. “I’ve heard better insults from Holly Wheeler.”

Billy shakes his head loose and pinches the bridge of Steve’s nose. Watches him full-body wince, jerking away, hands flying home to rub and soothe but stopping short, glaring haughty at him.

“I don’t know how they do things in California, but around here, talking to someone isn’t an invitation to get sucker punched. I’m already down, no need to beat a dead horse. _Again_.”

And yeah.

Okay.

He holds up his hands. Comes in slow this time. Careful. Fingers unsteady, but intent. Keeps a steady gaze with the space between Steve’s eyebrows, there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to handle direct eye-contact this close and still be chill. A tremor jolts through him and he hopes Steve doesn’t notice. Not the shake to his hands. The dainty way he holds himself now. The heat in his cheeks firing up the back of his neck and the tips of his ears.

Steve only needs to know so much. More than that and Billy’s bouncing out of this scene.

“I’m gonna count to three.” Billy tells him, no wiggle room for either of them.

Steve’s eyes widen.

“What—what do you mean? What happens on three?”

Billy’s had this done to him twice. Sid had been downright good at it. Stomped on Billy’s toes with the four inch heel of his boot to distract him first. Billy’s never been that nice, though.

“One—” Billy cracks Steve’s nose back into place.

Steve howls. Sets off every alarm in Billy's head. He wants to run. Hide under the covers and fall asleep with a lit cigarette.

The cops are gonna be called. The pavement has enough blood splatter to make a worthwhile crime scene. Steve screams like a chick. Billy doesn’t want more trouble, more attention.

Billy heaves himself together, gets his footing with determination, picks up his bag, and that spastic, strung taught _want_ to grab Steve—any time, all the time, in his dreams and sweating heavy in the school locker room—Billy takes Steve by his wrist and tugs him into the Gas-N-Sip. Leans over the counter and snags the restroom key from under Keith’s nose, tells Keith to _shove it_ along with his cheesy holiday elf hat when he opens his yap to try something. Billy’d spent his one short year in Hawkins High ramming the kid into his locker. He’s not about to let up thanks to a couple short-stack stumbling blocks.

In the cramped restroom, the paper towel dispenser’s empty. The lighting's too bright. Too stark. Shows every smear, dribble, stray rivulet of blood and the lightest hues where the bruises are gonna start coming in fast and hard by tomorrow around Steve’s eyes. Makes Billy itch, his stomach turn to lead and warn him his guts are on their way out.

He drops his shit. Plucks at his shirt. Gets blindsided by the copper smell stuffed in a small space. Of the slick RED on his own hands. Leads him into a dank basement in an abandoned warehouse. A sterile hospital with his arms strapped to the bed and a tube down his throat.

Billy tears his eyes away and focuses on the stink of piss and the sharpie graffiti on the wall, the biting chill of Hawkins in winter he’s lucky to experience for the second time, Steve’s boots. New looking. Dark leather still stiff and needs to be worn in. He used to wear Nikes every day at school, had a couple pairs he'd rotate through. A rich kid with too many clothes.

The point of going outside this late was to skulk around the dark and avoid anyone who thinks _conversation_ and _Billy Hargrove_ share any common ground.

Steve looks himself over in the mirror, angling his head to get different views of Billy’shandiwork. Guilt threatens to strip Billy bare, knocks him in his sternum and pounds his bones inward.

Steve starts laughing, it wheezes out of him in gnarled huffs. Billy twitches as Steve turns around, hip resting on the sink to smile, watery and sure and on the painful side. Regret's what Billy wants to see and hopes for, but doesn't find it.

“Sorry.” Steve says. “When I thought about seeing you again, kinda just assumed it’d go better than this. Whoops?”

“Shove it.” Billy squirms at the idea Steve’s thought about him _at all_.

He shrugs off his jacket and improvises. Twists the knob on the sink and dips a sleeve into hot water, wrings it out. Stalls, eyeing Steve and what should be on the inside that's on the outside _because of Billy_. The denim's a good buffer.

 _Pussy_ , Billy says to himself.

He grabs Steve by the back of his neck, yanks him forward, holds him down at eye level and mopsup his mug, biting his own tongue between his back molars. _Fucking coward._

Steve watches him closely. Eyes going this way and that and lingering. Content to be cleaned. Huffing and puffing through his nose. Eyes dipping and catching on the bruises and scars on Billy’s forearms. Infusions. Blood tests.

The question's there. It's a solid reminder that whatever could be between them's doomed. Has been. Before. Now.

“I ran once. Got caught on the fence and slipped.” Billy explains. Leaves out the details where he’d snagged a scalpel to cut the calking locking his window to push it open. Busting the glass would’ve just made noise that’d get him caught sooner. He’d been high off his ass and laughed the entire time he’d been carried back to his cozy hospital cell on a gurney and a dose of sedatives that made him puke for two days after. Doc lectured him extra hard. Shook his head and everything short of saying _I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed._

“Is that—can I ask about any of it or is it like NDA territory?”

“More like JFK.”

“Damn.”

Steve nods. Billy wipes at his chin. Finds some scruff that hadn’t been there in the summer and finds more all along his jaw. Steve’s stubbly not-quite-a-beard beard rasps against the denim. He won’t ever see the acre long scar on the inside of Billy’s leg and that's a good thing. Billy's not much for chatting. He's not sure what he could say.

_Thought I was dead. Doc kept trying to get me into origami. My dad hugged me and visited me every week. I'm a mother-flippin' miracle and ain't that just a letdown, Steve?_

He has a stack of notebooks by his bed he's supposed to write in. Detail every thought that goes through his head. Billy'd ripped each page out and chucked them into the trash til he hit cardboard.

Steve gives him one of those long considering type looks, the kind he’d gotten into the habit of giving Billy during the summer, reeling Billy in against any slip of better judgment he may have had once upon a time.

Billy’s fingers spasm on the back of Steve’s neck, sink deeper into Steve’s hair, nails raking then digging into his scalp. Steve grunts, leans closer, and Billy scrubs harder at his face to make up for whatever it is he’s doing anymore.

Fuck if he's got a clue.

Billy pauses to rinse out his sleeve, shifts to the other one and dampens it, feels his face light up hotter. Gets itchy again. Wipes his way to the center of the Problem. Up and down Steve’s neck. A wide, quick swipe across the probably-definitely ruined front of his coat and back to his winter- pink skin.

Steve’s lost his summer tan.

“Is this where I say _Merry Christmas_ or where you say _sorry I bashed your nose in again?_ ”

“Third times the charm, right?”

Steve licks at the corner of his mouth. Billy chases after his tongue with another swipe of his sleeve. “Did you walk here?”

“ _No_.” Billy says dryly. He hasn’t talked this much in weeks and it’s obvious by the way his voice is dragging, scrapping against his throat on the way up. “Just flapped my arms and flew.”

"It's freezing."

"Does it look like I care?"

Steve frowns. Unhappy with Billy’s life decisions. That makes two of them and every fed in Indiana. Doc especially.

The fluorescent light buzzes over their heads. The Gas-N-Sip’s playing Eartha Kit now. The bloated quiet between them doesn’t sink in, it pokes at Billy, jams its shitty fat thumb into his eye and tells him to go fuck himself.

Billy rubs a little harder than he has to on the cupid’s bow of Steve’s lips. Plush and wet and there for someone less messed up and way braver.

Billy’s tasted Steve’s blood before. Felt his skin rip. Swell. Slicked up with Billy's spit. His pulse racing for first place against Billy’s. They necked once in Harrington’s smoke filled basement. Red-eyed and sticking to the upholstery and lips tasting like the worst menthols and scraggly grass topped off with watery American Colonials Steve had on tap in a fridge his parents didn’t care about.

They’d cozied up on the Harrington leather couch, knees knocking together, hands twisting wrinkles into each other’s shirts, and Billy had slipped, given an inch and taken a mile. Catapulted himself into the sunset where he’d tucked tail and gotten mixed up with Hamburger Helper, the monster from Hell.

Lucy had been playing on the TV. Billy likes Jeannie more. Used to fantasize about his mom nodding her head and Neil zapping into an ant.

 _Regret_ is an easy word. Simple. Applicable.

There wasn’t any time. Not before. Not after. Billy’s got the shakes. Has had’m since. Near-death was the golden ticket out of his own head and all the problems it causes. It should’ve been. Why it isn't is anyone's guess.

Billy licks his lips again. Mouth dry. Throat tight. The world didn’t end for everyone, just him.

Steve’s looking better. Dribbling only a bit of blood that Billy’s quick to catch with his jacket- turned-rag.

It's gonna stain. Wearing Steve's blood is gonna send him over the edge.

“What the hell you doin’ here anyways?”

Steve takes a minute to answer. Wavers at the start.

“Parents are in Miami and Robin’s in New England with hers. Everyone else is, like, twelve or my ex, so. I got hungry?” Steve shrugs one shoulder. Says it like he doesn’t care. Maybe he doesn’t. Wouldn’t that be nice? Christmas is supposed to be jolly and full of love. Billy's scrabbled together what the Harrington household is like. Steve's family is shit. Billy's family is shit. No big tree for either of them. Something inside of Billy, warped and bitter, finds it nice to have that in common.

Steve winces when Billy gets too close to the center of trouble. Cracks an eye open to watch Billy. “You?”

Dodging the question is easy. Just shrugs Neil's eighteen years of parenting off and moves on. “Didn’t know good boys like you could stay up past ten.”  
  
Steve huffs. “Forgot to get milk for Santa.”

Billy dips low, drawing out this weird, unthinkable and impossible moment, wipes down Steve’s neck again. Steve tilts his head back this time, looking down at Billy. His nose trickles out a little more RED. Billy’s gonna shove an entire roll of toilet paper up that nose.

“Predictable.” Billy sneers, though it even feels fake to him.

“I asked for a pony this year. Don’t wanna piss the old man off and lower my chances of being a real cowboy.”

Real bitterness hits him square in the chest and burns bright, flickers out just as quickly. “Still full of shit, Harrington.”

Not like Steve could’ve done anything. Not like Billy wants to talk. Eavesdropping feds. NDAs. Whatever. Who cares.

It’s Billy’s fault. Steve’s that almost-maybe- _one time only or else_ good guy.

Billy’s just. This.

Brings back some memories he ain’t too fond of.

Billy stumbles back. His stomach heaves. Churns. Billy’s dizzy, about to barf out what little food he’s eaten today.

He slaps a hand over his mouth, gets a close-up sniff of copper on his hands and gags. Coughs.

Tears prick at his eyes, turns the world into a smear. Steve disappears in the wet blur. Bastards.

Motherfuckers.

Bitch-faced cunts on a wire.

“Hey.” Steve’s talking to him. Saying something. Then says it again, closer. Billy watches thick droplets hit the grimy tile between their feet. _The fucker._

Steve takes Billy’s hand. Holds it. Cups Billy’s cheek, unafraid and undisgusted.

“You can’t freak out on me, I’m freakin’ out on you." Steve says. "Billy? Hey, Billy, c’mon. Head up, you broke my face again. I think my nose is gonna be an innie now, totally gonna mess with the handsome cool-guy vibe I’ve got goin’ on.”

Billy wipes his dumb, stupid _dumb dumb christ is he dumb_ eyes on his arm. Blows his nose on the inside of his jacket.

Steve’s palm is warm and big on his cheek, thumb rubbing small circles under his eye. He'd washed his hands. He smells like shitty gas-station soap. It feels good. Makes him ache.

“I like the scruff.” Steve says, quiet.  
Billy won’t look at him, heart stuttering. “What?”

“Your beard. It’s, you know.” Steve huffs and his breath hits Billy all over and ain’t that just something to think and dwell and stick on. “Hell. Billy. I tried to call.”

“Right.”

“Tried to visit a couple times, too, while you were, _you know._ ”

“Insane?”

“ _Recovering_ or whatever. They said you didn’t wanna see me.”

Billy grunts, shrugs Steve off of him. Takes a step back and wrings his jacket in his hands. Unlike Steve, Billy couldn’t imagine what this would have been like. How Steve would look at him after everything. Steve’s the only one Billy didn’t fuck up with when the strings were tied to him and tugging him in all the wrong directions.

“Wrote to you too.” Steve droops, hands hovering in the air and dropping to his sides. “I didn’t think you were coming back. Max didn’t know. No one would tell me anything.”

“Sorry for wasting your time.” Billy mutters out to the sink, a quick glance up to Steve’s chin because he’s still shit at apologizing, even more when he actually means it.

Steve’s cleaned up the best he’s gonna get. Billy pawing at his face, lingering for no real reason outside of selfish ones and it pisses him off on top of everything else and he latches on to that familiar feeling, it’s safer, more understanding than sitting around wondering what else he’s missed and what other chances he's lost.

Billy tosses his jacket into the sink, goes into the stall and yanks a couple hundred one-ply sheets, mashes a handful of them up into nostril-sized wads and without a word shoves two into Steve’s nose.

“Ow. And thanks.” Steve says with a nasally voice that’s worse and dorkier than anything Billy’s heard in a while and he laughs, quick and cut off by the cramp in his side. He looks better like this, bruised up, fucked up, paper stuffed in his nose. Better than the moping Steve was about to fall into. Billy would've followed and goddamnit if he isn't just _tired_ of spinning out.

Billy scrubs his hands in the sink. Digs under his nails and gives in that he'll just have live with the RED until he gets back to his place. He holds up his soaked, bloodied denim jacket without a glance to the mirror because he’s not _crazy-_ crazy anymore, jumps at the sound of Steve unzipping his coat, taking it off, and holding it out for him.

“For spooking you. It's my fault. I guess.”

Billy's throat is a vise. “Your nose _did_ get in the way of my fist.”

“Surprisingly, I’ve heard that a lot.” Steve nudges Billy with his coat again. “Just so I don’t feel like a complete dick.”

Reluctantly, and knowing he’s gonna be annoyed at himself for months after this, he shoves his own jacket into his bag and takes Steve’s. Puts it on, chest clenching tight, stomach swooping through the Gas-N-Sip’s ceiling. Flushing deeply, he makes a beeline out the restroom door, his fist clenching the handle of his plastic bag.

Steve buys a coke and every pack of Reese’s candies there are. Billy drops the restroom key on the counter with a _clatter_ and flips Keith off when he makes a fuss about the blood on the wooden keychain, poking at it with a Slim Jim and a grimace.

Steve rushes to his car. Billy finally notices the old maroon beemer sitting in the corner of the parking lot. Steve yells _GET IN!_ at Billy and Billy stalls. Looks down the road he’d walked barely twenty minutes ago—dark, cold, lit up by yellow pools of light. In the distance are dots of Christmas lights, houses dressed up for the season and warm inside. Billy wraps Steve’s jacket tighter around himself, huffing Steve’s scent in like he’s sniffing spray paint from a sock. Deep inhales and a high that kicks in embarrassingly quick.

Steve has the heater on full blast. Music plays low on the radio. Some local station. Billy’s hands are thawing out, shaking too much from the cold and his busted nerves to go fishing for where Steve keeps his cassette tapes. He grips his knees, bag between his feet in the footwell. The seats smell like Steve's hairspray. Billy's stomach flips.

Steve leans back in his seat, eyes closed, arms outstretched with his hands on the wheel. His hair hangs down, tickling at his cheeks. He sighs, grimacing.

“God, my face hurts.”

“I'm the one who has to look at it.”

“Yeah, and you should. You're the one who did it. Take some responsibility for—for _this_.” Steve tenderly touches his nose, his blistering red cheeks glowing in the dim light of the beemer’s cabin, beginning to swell and yellow. He glances, near shy, at Billy. “I don’t know why I bought anything, not like I’m gonna be able to taste it.”

“I’ll eat it.” Billy says, takes Steve's coke and chugs half of it, face going ruddy, feels himself flush and his joints creak, warming up through the inside out. He hides a little more in Steve’s too-big coat. Inhales deep through his nose. Billy doesn’t shy away from sniffing himself out. Steve knows _that_ and plenty else. Enough.  
  
Steve smiles as best he can with a headful of hurt. "Merry Christmas?"

"Thanks, Santa."

Billy pulls Steve’s hat out of his back pocket, straightens it out in his hands and pinches the blue puff-ball on top. He gingerly and up-to-his-neck awkward shoves it back onto Steve’s head, stretches it and pulls it down low enough to cover his eyes.

"Why didn't—" Billy stops, knows it's a question Doc couldn't answer and Steve can't either. Nothing's gonna change what happened. He stares at the lights lining the outside of the Gas-N-Sip instead. He doesn't want to be stuck. Admits, sitting on the edge, feet swinging, “I didn’t know I was coming back. Didn’t know I’d be able to go back anywhere.”

Steve nudges up the front of his cap. Billy can feel him looking, the weight of what he might be searching for. Clenches his fists tighter in his lap and lets Steve touch his knuckles, lay his hand flat on top of Billy's

“I’m glad you’re here." He squeezes Billy, rubs those small circles along his trembling fingers. "Even if I can’t smell anything ever again.”

Billy sniffles, nails scraping down the threads of his jeans. “Gay.”

“Probably." Steve says, easy. New. Different from that kid sitting on the sticky sofa. Billy hates him. He barks out a laugh and _fuck_ if it doesn't hurt and make him grin like an idiot. Steve chuckles next to him and groans. Shifts in his seat. Shifts the beemer into reverse. Places his hand back on Billy's. "Can I drive you home?”

“California’s a long ways away, pretty boy.”

“I've got enough gas for about a mile up the road?”

“Stalker.”

Billy relaxes in his seat, slumps down and watches Steve drive the short mile back to his place without having to give him a single direction. He holds his breath. Lets Steve's touch soak into him. Goading him on.

Billy has plenty of time. He has so much of it.

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'August' by Flipturn.  
>   
> new --> [tumblr](https://lazybakerart.tumblr.com)


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